31st Symposium of the ICTM Study Group on Ethnochoreology (First Notice)

FIRST NOTICE

The Study Group on Ethnochoreology will hold its 31stsymposium in Lithuania from July 18-25, 2020 at Klaipėda University. The symposium will be hosted by the Department of Ethnomusicology, Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre in partnership with Klaipėda University and the Council for the Protection of Ethnic Culture. Dr. Dalia Urbanavičienė is chairing the Local Organizing Committee.

There are two themes for the symposium: (1) Dance and Economy and (2) Dance Transmission.

Theme 1:Dance and Economy

Dancehas significant relevance in constructing social interconnections andestablishing power relations within a community. However, aspects of dance as economy, broadly understood as constituting a variety of exchange relations among and within communities, have received little attention in scholarly research. Exploring specific ways in which dancers, dances, and dancing are implicated in interacting worlds of exchange—of money, labor, commodity, affect, and sentiment, among others— enhances our understanding of dance’s role in the context of real lives and concrete social situations. Questions generated by this perspective might be addressed at both micro and macro levels, in terms of systems of exchange or specific transactions.

Theme 2: Dance Transmission

The concept of dance transmission can include a broad spectrum of meanings. In a general sense it implies complex processes of transferring dance between those who transmit it and those who receive it.

Transmission is the act of acquiring or passing on knowledge, but it is also the way of doing so. What is the process of learning or teaching dance? What is really transmitted when somebody teaches or learns dance? Is it a form, the patterns of movements, a rhythm, a style, a tradition, a worldview? Are all of these transmitted simultaneously or successively? How are they interlinked depending on different contexts? What about the role of the individual in the transmission processes?

This theme invites presentations that address issues related to:

Theoretical issues regarding dance transmission

Different ways of transmitting dance in living traditions and/or dance revivals